Alabama temp agency to keep discrimination probe results secret

Automation Personnel Services has paid to settle a lawsuit by an applicant turned away by a New Orleans branch manager who told her "this is a man's job." Pictured is the company's Chatanooga branch, where former employees say they received orders for “country boys,” or white workers.
Credit: Jeremy Brooks for Reveal

Nordness was responding to a Reveal investigation that found rampant discrimination at his company, which provides temporary employees to industrial employers throughout the South. Whether Automation’s customers wanted only white workers or only Latinos, only men or only young people, the temp agency was happy to oblige, according to dozens of former employees. Black workers often were hit hardest by the illegal practice.

Just days after the story ran in The Birmingham News, Nordness, Automation’s president and CEO, vowed to get to the bottom of it by hiring an outside firm to investigate.

“I’m not someone that is going to look at this and try to sweep it under the carpet,” Nordness said in a January interview.

Last week, however, Automation’s vice president, Randy Watts, said the investigation had concluded and the results would “remain confidential.” He did not provide any details.

The company, Watts wrote in a short statement, “remains committed to hiring the most qualified workers available and contributing millions of dollars to local economies in the 33 locations we serve across the U.S.”

In March, Nordness wrote to Reveal that he was going to meet with the outside investigator shortly.

“After the meeting I will gladly give you a complete list of changes we have implemented,” he wrote.

Instead, Watts subsequently wrote by email, “We can say that we are reviewing and assessing our next steps and remain committed to being a first-in-class employer of choice and promoting a workplace that is free of discrimination and harassment.”

Michelle Clemon, a local human resources consultant hired by Automation, told Reveal that she did conduct an investigation but would not comment further.

After Reveal’s story, Automation also set up an employee complaint hotline through the Texas-based firm Employment Practices Solutions. The number is 1-800-837-6855. Automation did not respond to questions about the complaints it has received so far.

Don't miss the next big story.

Republish Our Stories

Alabama temp agency to keep discrimination probe results secret

By Will EvansReveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting April 16, 2016

Thanks for your interest in republishing this story. As a nonprofit newsroom, we want to share our work freely with as many people as possible. We only ask that you follow a few guidelines.

You may embed our audio and video content and republish any written story for free under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license and will indemnify our content as long as you strictly follow these guidelines:

TEXT

Include this language at the beginning of the story: “This story was produced by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting (link organization name to revealnews.org), a nonprofit news organization. Get their investigations emailed to you directly by signing up at revealnews.org/newsletter.

Our reporter(s) must be bylined. We prefer the following format: By Emmanuel Martinez, Reveal.

Do not change or edit our material, except only to reflect changes in time and location. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week,” and “Portland, Ore.” to “Portland” or “here.”)

Include all links from the story.

PHOTOS

You can republish Reveal photos only if you run them in or alongside the stories with which they originally appeared, include the original caption, and do not change them.

If you want to run a photo apart from that story, please request specific permission to license by contacting Senior Digital Producer Sam Ward, sward@revealnews.org. Reveal often uses photos we purchase from The Associated Press; those are not available for republication.

DATA

IN GENERAL

We do not compensate anyone who republishes our work. You also cannot sell our material separately or syndicate it.

You can’t republish all of our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually. To inquire about syndication or licensing opportunities, please contact Sam Ward, sward@revealnews.org

If we send you a request to remove our content from your website, you must agree to do so immediately.

FYI, you can grab HTML code for our stories easily. Click on the “Republish this content” link at the bottom of every story. Please do not alter this code.

DO NOT APPLY IF

If you wish to only use portions of the work or create a derivative, you need separate permission and the license and indemnification do not apply. This license only applies to republication of full works.

Additionally, we will not provide indemnification if you are located or publishing outside the United States, but you may contact us to obtain a license and indemnification on a case-by-case basis.